Intersection built by aliens? Jess Rollins takes a look

A driver inches onto Jefferson Ave. to see around a new rock wall at the Bennett intersection. After a year of construction with a $3.8 million price tag, the intersection opened over the weekend to many complaints about visibility.(Photo: Valerie Mosley/News-Leader)Buy Photo

Providing just enough gas to keep the engine from stalling. Admiring the headroom in my new car while straining to look over a rock wall at the southwest corner.

George Cron explains why he thinks the newly opened intersection at Jefferson Ave. and Bennett St. is dangerous.

That wall, Underwood joked, must have been designed by an art major, or a doctoral student of Russian literature — anything but a civil engineer.

The intersection, after more than a year of construction and a $3.8 million price tag, opened over the Fourth of July weekend.

It didn't take long for Underwood, and others, to lodge their complaints with the city. Some also alerted us. On Monday, my editors — without so much as a "be careful" — sent me to investigate.

I've crept completely into the nearest lane now and still haven't seen, to my satisfaction, the prospect of what traffic might be headed my way.

Suddenly, the front end of a white pickup truck appears.

Clutch. Brake. Exhale.

Underwood came to mind again. Sitting in her at-home hair salon a few blocks away from the intersection, she described the threat as serious but she kept a smile.

"Maybe aliens did it ..." she joked. They came to Earth, that is, to destroy the neighborhood near Parkview High School.

"... to get rid of us all and use the neighborhood for something else."

More seriously, she noted the intersection's proximity to the high school. Expressed only with an anguished look on her face, she communicated a fear that young, less cautious drivers might not navigate the intersection with proper care.

"I don't want to say that — I'm an optimist," she said.

Maybe I would've been less skittish in my car if Underwood hadn't been so colorful about the intersection's threat — and if I hadn't just put a down payment on the Chevy Cruze I was using to experience it firsthand.

Before noon Monday, the city of Springfield had received five complaints about the intersection.

Looking through those reports, many of the complainants seemed torn — appreciative of the stonework and lush green space but using exclamation points and all capital letters to describe a "MAJOR BLIND SPOT."

City spokeswoman Cora Scott said Monday afternoon that Public Works officials have decided to shut down the eastbound lane to further investigate the claims of danger.

Perhaps they will find no problem and embrace comments from people like Ruth Barnes. She lives only a few doors down from Underwood.

Standing on her well-manicured front lawn, Barnes believed the designer should be praised for conceiving and executing such an aesthetically pleasing intersection.

As for any danger caused by the rock walls?

"There could be issues," she conceded.

"But it's too early to say."

So, who is behind this intersection?

An award-worthy engineer? A philosophy professor? An extraterrestrial?

Kirk Juranas, interim co-director of project delivery for Public Works, explained to me that the intersection was designed out-of-house by Springfield-based consulting firm Crawford, Murphy & Tilly, Inc.

Juranas said he and other city staffers have concluded the left turn from Bennett to Jefferson is causing trouble for some drivers.

"We looked at it immediately," he said.

"And we want to be on the safe side."

Juranas said the intersection was built according to the design plans and city engineer Dave Shalla acted as the city's inspector.

Until he gets all the facts, Juranas said, he wouldn't comment about who, if anyone, had made a mistake in the construction of the intersection.

Shalla did not return a call for comment.

I did learn from earlier news releases that the opening of the intersection marked the completion of the Fassnight Creek Stormwater and Greenway Trail Improvements Project, a multipurpose project that included reconstruction of bridges and roadways and floodplain improvements to reduce flooding hazards to motorists and nearby neighborhoods.

City planners believe the improvements will keep the intersection above the 100-year flood mark; reduce erosion; protect adjacent properties from flood damage; and improve water quality.

I ultimately maneuvered through the intersection — northbound, southbound, east and west.

I parked for a moment and observed others travel through the new intersection as well.

I'd like to point out here that I am not a traffic analyst. I have a journalism degree and I hail from planet Earth.

Besides my efforts on Monday, I have no experience critiquing the safety of intersections. I have driven a car for more than 15 years. And I would categorize the newly opened — then promptly closed — intersection at Bennett and Jefferson as "creepy."

Creepy, insofar as nearly every east- or westbound vehicle that passes through it must slow to a crawl and slowly "creep" until the driver can have a reasonable assurance that the coast is clear.

Underwood, who is also an earthling, rated the intersection as "disturbing."

Disturbing in that the city spent more than a year on construction, and almost $4 million, for an intersection of questionable safety near a high school.

This is the first piece from Jess Rollins, the News-Leader's new metro columnist. Rollins, a lifelong resident of the Ozarks, has covered cops, courts, city government and other topics for the News-Leader over the last four years.